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Joe Mazulla

WilmoreCat

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Gold Member
Nov 18, 2005
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Thought it was interesting that he went to Huggins before our game with West Virginia in 2010 and proposed he play a 1-3-1 zone that beats us ,then scores a career high 17 points.
 
It would have been even more interesting if Cal was a competent enough coach to take an NBA All Star team college roster and beat a bunch of scrubs and a drunk to go to the FF in his first year.

Sorry I’m clearly still bitter. That was one of my all time favorite UK rosters and should have been in the convo with the 96 and 2012 team.
 
The greatest day In the history of Kentucky basketball went down in flames against huggy how many first rounders did Kentucky have 5 man I knew then this guy could not coach no adjustments no feeding the ball to the post let's jack 35 threes and go 1 for 35 clown show
 
The greatest day In the history of Kentucky basketball went down in flames against huggy how many first rounders did Kentucky have 5 man I knew then this guy could not coach no adjustments no feeding the ball to the post let's jack 35 threes and go 1 for 35 clown show
Looking back on that game now, Cal made no adjustments in that game against something we hadn’t seen all year, so it was a red flag on what was to come.
 
Cal should have taken Huggins out for happy hour the night before and bought him more booze before tipoff. Only way he could have won.
 
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It would have been even more interesting if Cal was a competent enough coach to take an NBA All Star team college roster and beat a bunch of scrubs and a drunk to go to the FF in his first year.

Sorry I’m clearly still bitter. That was one of my all time favorite UK rosters and should have been in the convo with the 96 and 2012 team.
Otis took it to us that day.
 
For sure, 2010,2012,2015 and in 2014, if he would have played zone sooner we would have won that.

He only did it when we got down I think 17, went zone and cut it to 2 or 4 but was to little to late.
Absolutely…going further 2011, 2017 and 2019 all missed opportunities…2022 loosing as 2 with POY is awful but can’t consider much of an opportunity since we didn’t get out of the first game…or even worse returning said POY to earn a 6 seed and fail to reach the second weekend…and we won’t rehash this past season again. The number of opportunities, incredibly talented teams that were capable of final 4s or national titles…a few adjustments you would think we would have won at least 2 if not 3 titles under Cal.
 
And nobody who could match up with them on the other side. One of the worst coaching jobs I’ve ever seen!
This was the exact moment I knew we had hired a horrible bench coach. Any middle school coach knows how to attack a 1-3-1 zone and Cal had 2 seven footers to destroy the baseline with dunks.......

Then 2013 happened, and everyone should have known that the one and done model was not a long term successful system to maintain a championship program.

Put those two things together, and you get what we got.....
 
This was the exact moment I knew we had hired a horrible bench coach. Any middle school coach knows how to attack a 1-3-1 zone and Cal had 2 seven footers to destroy the baseline with dunks.......

Then 2013 happened, and everyone should have known that the one and done model was not a long term successful system to maintain a championship program.

Put those two things together, and you get what we got.....

I began to say around the time he was no longer getting the top 5 with ease to scrap the system because he’s not a good coach and needs them to succeed in the OAD model. Cannot begin to tell you how much crap I took. It took some ppl 5-7 years more to figure it out. It was like I suggested something that 99/100 disagreed with. Then to see those same ppl celebrate when we’d get another crop of fridge OAD 2nd rounders ranked #17 like it was going to matter. Made me gnash my teeth apart.

I remember sitting and watching that game, seeing that adjustment, and thinking okay let’s get the bigs to work and put this away. And as I sat there minute by minute watching us jack up 3’s I had a feeling we were in trouble. Right with ya. And let’s be honest, as hard as it is to believe, it appears he really doesn’t know what to do. Or if he did, players were free to do whatever they wanted and like God he’d already defined free will and couldn’t intervene. We’ll never know.
 
I began to say around the time he was no longer getting the top 5 with ease to scrap the system because he’s not a good coach and needs them to succeed in the OAD model. Cannot begin to tell you how much crap I took. It took some ppl 5-7 years more to figure it out. It was like I suggested something that 99/100 disagreed with. Then to see those same ppl celebrate when we’d get another crop of fridge OAD 2nd rounders ranked #17 like it was going to matter. Made me gnash my teeth apart.

I remember sitting and watching that game, seeing that adjustment, and thinking okay let’s get the bigs to work and put this away. And as I sat there minute by minute watching us jack up 3’s I had a feeling we were in trouble. Right with ya. And let’s be honest, as hard as it is to believe, it appears he really doesn’t know what to do. Or if he did, players were free to do whatever they wanted and like God he’d already defined free will and couldn’t intervene. We’ll never know.
He's just a bad coach. Who is propped up by elite staff members, and great players. Amazing recruiter, awful bench coach. He can just skirt by being bad at X's and O's by sales and recruiting.


Occam's razor.
 
I was watching Cousins on a podcast with Wall and he basically stated he had no idea why he wasn't getting the ball in the WV game and the team kept jacking 3s. That's a huge tell on Cals coaching ability if the players realize what needs to be done but the coach can't.
Correct me if I'm wrong. It's been a long time since 2010 and I have never rewatched that game, and as I get older my me worry plays tricks on me. All disclaimers aside, I remember us going into Cousins a lot that game and he was getting double and triple teamed and mugged and had no chance of doing anything with the ball. He was forced to throw the ball back out and we kept taking "wide open" threes as a result. Not saying his Cal's coaching wasn't crappy, cause it was, but we missed a lot of shots, the game plan wasn't to shoot a bunch of threes. But he made zero adjustments and after a whole of continuing to miss those shots Cal did. Nothing.
 
Those back door cuts on Wall in the second half were the stuff of nightmares. Game took place on my birthday. Team made up for it a year later with that UNC elite 8 game on the same date.
 
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A college coach with multiple Final Fours didn't know how to beat a basic 1-3-1 defense. Never mind that we had Cousins and Patterson that we could've used in a high low situation or could've overloaded one side to disrupt things. Nope. Let's have our team shoot 34 threes considering it was the weakest part of our team that season.

WVU got blown out the next game against Duke too. Joe would only score four points against Duke.
 
Thought it was interesting that he went to Huggins before our game with West Virginia in 2010 and proposed he play a 1-3-1 zone that beats us ,then scores a career high 17 points.
Weird that Huggins didn't go to that defense until we were up in the first half.
 
It was this very game in the tourney that I thought had the makings of embarrassment.

Sadly, I wanted to us to win it anyways but nope....we went out.
 
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